Mitakoyasin All My Relations

By Shane Patterson, 2nd year MDP student

Hau mitakiyapi, I greet you all with a heartfelt handshake with good thoughts and feelings. For my 2024 MDP Field Placement, I was placed with Whistling Winds Therapy Inc. This field placement was a unique opportunity and experience. A fundamental aspect of the field placement was using the Wiwang Wacipi (Dancing to The Sun Ceremony-Sundance) as part of a structure and framework to integrate community and therapeutic based practices with Whistling Wind participants. This was a major accomplishment as I was able to use this sacred way of life engaging youth and relatives introducing them to healing practices. 

Using a Dakota worldview and approach, I taught cultural protocols, Sundance teachings, shared oral stories on the Sundance, shared medicinal knowledge on plants, collaborated with other elders, knowledge keepers and healers, shared songs, and facilitated various ceremonies throughout the duration of the field placement. Action Therapists and youth were exposed to this ancestral knowledge to help support, foster, nurture, and strengthen core aspects of their Indigeneity. I ran the Wiwang Wacipi throughout the month of July (21-28) having four full days of purification and four days of Sundancing. Throughout the months of June and July, preparation began preparing the site for the ceremony by harvesting wood, rocks, tipi poles, medicines, building the arbor, having ceremonies, building relationships with community, and so many other activities. There were a lot of volunteers from the community as well as Whistling Winds staff and youth who would come out throughout the two months to prepare. Pledge meetings were held in the winter months unpacking various Sundance teachings hosted by Whistling Winds at their office site on Selkirk Avenue. There were no pictures allowed throughout the duration of the ceremony to honour the sacredness of Sundancer’s prayers, energies, intentions, as well as respect for the dancers and ceremony. 

I enjoyed this placement very much as the Sundance Chief leading the ceremony but also blending my MDP field placement with my spiritual-cultural skills and assets. I really felt fortunate that the MDP Program and the University of Winnipeg provided me this experience and opportunity to demonstrate the teachings and Dakota traditions I was brought up with to share with those who participated. The Sundance way of life will continue for the future generations in those who follow and walk this way of life. Mitakoyasin All My Relations.